The present disclosure is directed toward a method and an apparatus for providing a variable gloss image and, more particularly, to a double-layer GlossMark™ image that is rendered using a dynamic patternink.
In conventional applications, a font string or text is visually seen as a character/text element against a different colored background. In contrast, GlossMark™ font allows text to be visible as a difference in directional gloss and is obtained with no color difference between font foreground and background. This font has applications in security and beautification, etc., and is preferably implemented in a standard digital printing system. Therefore, GlossMark™ applications were created to provide font representations that can be handled in standard font mechanisms of a language. GlossMark™ font is an electronically stored font representation that includes a rendered foreground font character representation having a font body image shape and a background field area bitmap representation suitably encompassing the font body image shape. The bitmap representations are created for a specific input font and size. More specifically, a sub-sample of the font selection is rasterized into a binary bitmap form at a reduced resolution. The font selection undergoes upscaling to eliminate fine details of the font and to create a coarse representation of the font, which enables an alignment of all character outlines with a placement of anisotropic structures. A first anisotropic structure is applied to the foreground font character representation and a second anisotropic structure rotated from the first structure is applied to the background field. The resulting GlossMark™ font provides font elements and background fields formed from the same color, that are recognizable by gloss differentiation. Changes in the anisotropic structures are made viewable by a suitably angled concentrated light source, which is utilized as a tool assist in the gloss application. In this manner, differential gloss images can be employed as a differential gloss font in a variable data system without impacting a throughput of the image producing system.
Accordingly, GlossMark™ text finds useful implementation as a document security element in security applications. However, the use of the single color for forming GlossMark™ text strings has limited design freedom and it makes the text string more sensitive to machine artifacts and drifts when compared to a more visually complex pattern. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a dynamic visual distraction pattern that can be overlaid with the pattern ink so that distinct variable information can be seen in color and in gloss. In this manner, the artifacts may be concealed. However, the previously mentioned process for precomputing the bitmaps for the original GlossMark™ font is not achievable for the second independent variable entity that is overlaid on the first. The total amount of data required for processing and storing the various precomputed images would exceed reasonable limits.
Therefore, the present disclosure provides a method and an apparatus for providing a double layer GlossMark™ image through a use of dynamic patterninks.